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Time for President Obama to Use the Bully Pulpit and Assert Strong Leadership

By Brigitte L.
Nacos

Thanks to his
clear victory this week President Obama has replenished political capital to
assert the same strong leadership he displayed in reaction to Hurricane Sandy.

To be sure,
Republican leaders in Congress have shown none of the qualities that New Jersey
Governor Chris Christie demonstrated when he abandoned partisan politics and
cooperated closely with the president in the face of a horrendous crisis for
the benefit of the many hard hit hurricane victims in his state.

President Obama
must nevertheless strive to install the bipartisan Obama-Christie cooperation model in Washington
in order to find agreements to solve the nation’s most pressing problems. Never mind
that Republican leaders, who might want to cooperate, will continue to feel threatened
by the wrath of uncompromising Tea Partiers and Grover Norquist, the unelected
ruler of the GOP’s no-new-tax dictate.

The president’s
stump speeches in the last phase of the campaign underscored that he is an
excellent communicator if he so chooses.

Unfortunately,
the great communicator Obama was mostly absent from the political arena for
most of his first term. Had he explained, for example, in plain language the
provisions of the “Obamacare” package, he could have enlisted solid public support.

He left it to
the opposition to fill the gap with misinformation.

This must change.
In today’s mass society with its many forms of mass communication and mass
self-communication a strong leader must constantly inform and engage the people
rallying their support for policies benefiting the vast majority and opposition
against those measures designed for the super-wealthy 1 percent.

First of all, and
before the new congress convenes, the so-called fiscal cliff must be dealt with
decisively. Unless there is finally a fair agreement on how to handle the
expiring tax cuts adopted during the George W. Bush presidency, there will be
across-the-board spending cuts in Pentagon and domestic programs.

President Obama
must insist on doing away with all of the favorable tax rates for the rich and
super-rich while preserving those for the lowest and middle income groups. He should
muster all his communicative qualities to lead a vigorous public discourse on
good and bad ways to deal with the fiscal crisis.

And he should
try to win former President Bill Clinton to be his negotiator-in-chief with
congressional leaders in the upcoming struggle to avoid going over the
financial cliff.